State capital gets its first community eye bank
The prayers of many of those waiting for the gift of sight have been answered. A state-ofthe-art KGMU UP Community Eye Bank is all set to see light of the day when it will be formally inaugurated on Monday by UP governor Ram Naik.
This eye bank will collect, evaluate and match donated corneas to help visually impaired come out of their dark world and lead a normal life. It will be operated by SightLife, its first centre outside USA in India and will serve the people of Lucknow and adjoining districts.
“There are estimated 190,000 people in the UP affected by corneal blindness. With the launch of the first public/private partnership (PPP), the eye bank aims to eliminate corneal blindness in the most populated state in the country,” said Claire Bonilla, chief global officer of SightLife.
She said, “UP did over 650 transplants last year but the need is enormous, given that there are over 190,000 suffering from corneal blindness in the state. India has an estimated 10 lakhs (1.0 million) bilaterally corneal blind (visual impairment with both eyes) and about 50–60 lakhs (5–6 million) unilaterally blind (visual impairment in one eye)”.
She said this was a community, collaborative effort of KGMU and Sitapur Eye Hospital Trust, which have worked to establish the first SightLife operated eye bank. It was a non-profit entity that relied on generous donations from the likes of ‘Hans Foundation’, to make restoration of sight for many possible.
There are over 750 eye banks in the country out of which around 125–150 are active and contributed 22,858 transplants last year. In 2015, SightLife’s 14 partners delivered 11,947 transplants out of the total 22,858 that the country did, informed Bonilla.
She further said, “The need for the hour is to have 25–40 high performing, adequately staffed eye banks doing over 2,500–5,000 transplants in a year. This needs to be backed by mandatory notification of deaths, hospital cornea recovery programs with all major hospitals and mortuaries linked to the eye bank.”